BlackBerry is not doing too well lately. Not only can it not create a smartphone to compete against leading Android devices or the iPhone, a few weeks ago WhatsApp cut support for its OS. Now the manufacturer is about to find itself in even deeper water. Facebook has announced that it will be cutting support for BlackBerry OS as well.
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Recently WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, announced that it will be cutting support for BlackBerry 10 and BBOS by the end of 2016. Now, Facebook itself announced that it will be discontinuing “support of its essential APIs (application-programming interfaces) for BlackBerry”.
In a blog post BlackBerry senior marketing manager of developer relations, Lou Gazzola commented on the
[quote]We are extremely disappointed in their decision, as we know so many users love these apps. We fought back to work with WhatsApp and Facebook to change their minds, but at this time, their decision stands[/quote]
BlackBerry has decided to also try to fight back by asking its users to “let them [Facebook] know how they feel on social media, using the hashtag #ILoveBB10Apps”. The company also says that it is working on alternate solutions to help their users experience Facebook on their devices, but as any third-party apps rely on Facebook’s API (which has been cut), this is really not a viable solution.
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It seems that Facebook and WhatsApp have just killed BlackBerry. What do you think?